Despite conservationists warning about the negative impact of charcoal, Somalia continues to lose its trees to a trade that is illicit in the country.

Records indicate that some two million trees are felled every year in the trade worth 120 million dollars (€100 million), a UN estimate shows. It names the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman as the key buyers.

Of those 120 million dollars, at least 10 million are siphoned off by al-Shabab, the Islamist militant group fighting the government.

The DW news agency reported in March 2018 that Somalia had at a United Nations-backed summit in Mogadishu promised to cooperate with other countries in Africa and the Middle East to stop the export of charcoal.